


What Ya Got There?

by AdamantSteve



Series: WIP Amnesty/FicDump [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1492054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/pseuds/AdamantSteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint finds a baby, but he can't give her away... Understandably, the team aren't so sure about this, except for Phil...</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Ya Got There?

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: **this story is unfinished and unbetaed**.The end of the fic has a list of what happens after the events detailed in the story. 
> 
> Warnings for baby abandonment (though it's later revealed that it was only alone for a matter of seconds) and Clint mistrusting the system because he had a bad time of things when he was a kid, though it's not detailed.

“Where the hell is Barton?” Tony asked, pouring a drink. “He’s usually around for cocktail hour.” 

Natasha uncurled herself from the couch and walked over to the bar. “I don’t know, probably stalking Coulson or on the range.”

Tony shrugged and handed her a vodka martini.

 

-

 

“My Hawk!” Thor boomed, brushing some cement dust off of his hammer. “You must come to karaoke tonight and regale us with the songs of your people!” 

Clint quickly folded up his bow before slinging it back over his shoulder. “Next time, big guy,” he promised before swiftly hopping into a cab.

 

-

 

“Tasha, have you seen Barton lately? He hasn’t been by my office in almost a week.” Natasha was wary enough of getting involved with other people’s business, especially will-they-won’t-they pairs of idiots like Clint and Phil, but had been wondering what Clint was up to lately herself. 

“Nope,” she answered honestly. 

 

-

 

“What’ve you been up to lately, Clint?” Steve asked over Chinese food on Thursday night, one of the rare times he’d been around in the evenings. Clint looked up in confusion. Natasha narrowed her eyes and Phil studied him with interest. 

“Just working on a project, Cap,” he answered with measured disinterest. Before Steve could ask anything further, something buzzed and Clint jumped up, grabbing a carton of food to take back down to his floor.

 

-

 

Later that night, Natasha stood in the elevator and hit 41 - Clint’s floor. The elevator stopped at floor 40. She hit it again and it stopped at floor 42. She tried again and it slipped past Clint’s floor again, so she got out on Bruce’s floor and took the fire escape up to Clint’s. The door was locked. 

 

Grumbling in under her breath in Russian, Natasha headed all the way down to Stark’s workshop. 

“There a reason the elevator won’t stop on Clint’s floor, Stark? He’s not answering his phone, and Jarvis is being,” she paused to look reprovingly at the wall beside her, “unhelpful.” 

Tony furrowed his brow and waved the various holographic projections out of the air around him. “He _has_ been acting weird lately, hasn’t he? Jarv? What’s the deal with Hawkeye?” 

“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Jarvis replied lightly. Tony rolled his eyes and turned his attention on Natasha. “I could spend time dicking around with Jarvis’s programming here but it’ll be easier if we just go down there and bash in the door. You game?” 

“Always,” Natasha replied. 

 

-

 

Natasha and Tony stood in the stairwell outside floor 41 with Tony levelling his Iron Man gauntlet at the door jamb next to the lock. “Sir!” Jarvis suddenly cried, “I believe the door is now unlocked.”

Tony scowled into the air. “I’m gonna have serious words with you later Jarvis,” he muttered, pushing the door open. 

 

Clint’s floor was much the same as the other floors that the team had moved into six months ago when they first became a team. A few things marked it out as his own: some native American arrowheads framed on the entrance wall, a couple of identification prints of hawks, a surprisingly expansive collection of books. But Clint himself was nowhere to be seen. 

 

They stayed silent as Natasha moved with further in but froze suddenly as a high pitched wail erupted from further inside the apartment. She turned, staring at Tony with wide eyes. They looked at each other in shock, listening to a baby crying and then Clint softly cooing words that they couldn’t make out. 

 

The crying subsided and Clint’s voice replaced it, gently singing a lullaby. Before either of them made a decision about what to do, Clint appeared, walking to the window with something in his arms.

 

“Clint,” Natasha said quietly, and he froze, back still turned to them. 

“What are you doing down here?” He asked without turning around. 

“We wondered where the hell you were,” Tony said, pulling the gauntlet off. “What ya got there, Clint?” 

 

Clint turned around slowly. There was a baby in his arms. 

 

 _“Jesus christ_ , Clint,” Natasha whispered, frozen to the spot. 

“Is that seriously a-” Tony began, stepping forward but stopping when Clint stepped back and clutched the baby to himself. 

 

“I’m keeping her,” Clint said quickly and with certainty. “I’m not going to let anyone take her.”

“No one’s taking her, Clint,” Natasha promised, stepping slowly closer to them both. “Where did she come from?” 

 

Clint looked away before looking back up at them both. “Is the door closed?” 

Natasha shot Tony a look, he was just as blindsided as she was. “Yeah, it’s closed,” Tony said, standing next to Natasha. 

“Jarvis,” Clint said softly, “lock everything down again.” 

“About that,” Tony started, before Natasha bruised a few ribs with her elbow. 

 

Clint ushered for them to sit on the couch before sitting himself with the baby, setting down a bottle of formula on the coffee table. He looked completely wrong like this but somehow completely at home too. It was unnerving. 

 

“I found her outside the tower last week. There was a note...” Clint reached into his back pocket and pulled out a battered piece of paper. Typed and printed off on a computer, the note said the baby would have a better life with Clint and not much more. No names, numbers, nothing. Natasha passed it to Tony and looked back at Clint. He was staring at the tiny child with a look unlike anything else she’d ever seen on his face. The baby was looking back at him with huge eyes. 

 

“How come you didn’t call anyone? The police? Child protective services? Has she even seen a doctor?”

Clint looked shifty before whispering, “Bruce-” 

“Bruce?!” Tony gasped. 

“-he looked her over. She’s fine. He figures she’s about a week old. You can save your lectures, he already gave me them all.”

 

“Clint,” Natasha began, unsure of what to say. 

“I don’t wanna hear it, Tash.”

 

-

 

“What are you going to do?” Natasha said sharply. “You’re just going to keep a baby secret? Not let her out of your apartment til her eighteenth birthday? This is crazy! You have to tell someone! You didn’t even tell me?”

Clint shook his head. “No, Tasha. I don’t know alright? I don’t know what I’m gonna do. But I won’t, I can’t... I won’t let her go to a home.” He stopped abruptly and looked down, having given everything away. 

“ _Clint_ ,” said Natasha, reaching out a hand to touch his knee. “It’s not... It’s different for babies, she’ll get adopted-” 

“No. I can’t. I have to do this.”

“Do what?!” Tony asked. “Bring up a baby? On your own? At the same time as fighting crime every other day?” 

Clint sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “This is why I didn’t tell anyone. Look, I know, I’m hardly... Father material. I know that. I _know_ that.” As he was speaking, the baby reached an arm towards him and he absently let her grab one of his fingers. 

 

They sat and watched Clint looking sadly at the contented baby for a few moments. If circumstances were different, it would almost have been the perfect picture of a father with his newborn child. 

 

“Alright,” Tony said, taking a deep breath. “What do you want to do?” 

“I wanna keep her.” 

“So you wanna adopt her?” 

Clint looked hopeless. “I guess?” 

“And you want to be her legal guardian for... I don’t know how it works, but at least eighteen years.”

Clint nodded timidly before putting more assurety into it. “Yes. Yeah, I do.”

Tony sighed. “Well, I’m sure Agent can circumvent any of the usual papers, records, that kind of crap,” he was silenced by Clint’s panicked look. 

“No! Don’t tell Phil, please. Please, you can’t.” 

 

“Clint, he’ll find out sooner or later,” Natasha said gently. 

“I don’t-” Clint sighed and sagged a little. “Don’t tell him yet.” 

 

-

 

Natasha and Tony made sure Clint had everything they figured he needed, and found that he had most of a nursery already set up in a corner of his bedroom. Every kind of baby formula, various types of diapers. A bottle warmer. “How the hell didn’t any of us notice you bringing all this stuff in?” Tony murmured, and Clint was mildly offended at the vague dig at his stealth skills. 

 

They left him and the baby, so far named ‘Baby’, going to Tony’s floor for shellshocked whiskeys in the lounge. 

 

“What the hell are we going to do?” Tony asked Natasha, both of them leaning on the bar. “Clint’s a stubborn idiot, so without an alternative that isn’t the authorities, he’s not giving up that baby.” 

“If we tell Phil,” Tony started uneasily.

“No,” Natasha shook her head, “we promised.” 

“He’s out of his mind.”

Natasha snorted. “Haven’t we all been at one time or another? Maybe this is what he needs. Stability, something to come home to.” 

“So buy a cat.” 

“He’s allergic.” 

 

Tony rubbed his face. “Jarvis, are you 100% with me again? I mean I’m going to sit and go through your entire code one day, figure out how the hell Barton managed to turn you over to the dark side, but right now, I need you.”

“Certainly sir, my apologies.”

Tony frowned but continued anyway, asking the AI to bring up all the security cam footage from the Monday prior, the day Clint said he’d found the baby. 

“Apologies sir, but the record of that night is incomplete.”

“What does that mean?” 

“I believe you are looking for footage of someone leaving the child currently in Mr Barton’s quarters in front of the tower. That footage is missing.”

“Was it Clint?” Tony asked.

“No sir, it appears that an external device caused the loss of record. Bringing up the footage before and after now, sir.”

 

A holo-screen rose up and showed the doorstep of the tower, set far in from the street and up a short flight of steps. The time in the corner read 3.04 am. Then the screen flickered into snow and [MISSING DATA] flashed up for a moment before going back to the previous scene, the time reading 3.09. There was a baby carrier with a blanket over the top of it sitting in the centre of the screen. At 3.10 Clint jogged up the steps, leant over the carrier and peeled back the blanket before looking around and then picking it up and taking it into the tower with him.

 

“At least she wasn’t out there long,” Natasha offered, knocking back the dregs of her drink and crunching ice in her teeth. 

“Maybe they knew Clint was on his way,” Tony muttered, rewinding the tape to just before the blackout. He had Jarvis run every kind of test he could think of to work out what had caused it, but other than running tests overnight, nothing was conclusive. 

 

-

 

“So, Tony’s trying to figure out who the person who left the baby is. Trying to work out why the cameras dropped out right when she was left.”

“The cameras were knocked out?” Clint asked, scratching his face with his shoulder as his hands busied changing the baby.

“Didn’t you wonder who left it?” 

“Whoever they are, they can go fuck themselves. You don’t just leave a child out on the street. You don’t just leave a child anywhere.”

“Maybe they were hurt. Maybe they were in trouble.” 

“I don’t care, Tash,” he said, jaw set. 

 

“What are you going to do about Coulson?” Natasha asked, changing the subject, sort of, running a finger along the edge of the changing station. She wasn’t about to offer to help. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Oh c’mon Clint. You and him. This.” 

“There is no me and him. And this is... unrelated.” 

“Have you been seeing anyone lately?” 

“What? No, not really. A few one nighters I guess, here and there.” 

“Anyone in particular?” 

“No... And not since the Chitauri anyway.” 

 

Natasha absorbed the information, but Clint knew her too well. 

“Don’t do your whole schtick, Nat. Not on me. It’s a waste of time. If you want to ask me something go ahead and ask me.”

 

“Did you take the camera footage?”

“No!”

She nodded. “I believe you.”

Baby started crying and Clint glared at Natasha. “Are you done giving me the third degree?” He asked, pushing past her to the kitchen for a bottle.

 

-

 

“Tiny little lulya,” Clint overheard Natasha call the baby, and the name stuck. Natasha protested since it was some kind of russian meatball, but Tony and Bruce agreed that it was sweet. 

 

-

 

Between Bruce, Tony and Natasha, they did a pretty efficient job of covering for Clint’s absence and looking after the baby when he absolutely couldn’t miss something at SHIELD. He hated leaving her though, and was suspicious when he was at work, being distracted constantly by checking his phone every few minutes. It was only luck that there wasn’t any massive catastrophe that called for his help.

 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when Phil walked into his living room unannounced one evening. It was really only a matter of time.

 

“Phil!?” Clint said, standing up abruptly and dropping a blanket over the bouncy chair the baby was in, which just made her gurgle in excitement. Phil’s face in shock was something Clint would have paid real money for a few weeks ago, but right now it was all he could do not to grab Baby and run. 

 

“You can’t take her!” Clint cried, cursing himself for not physically blocking the elevator like he had meant to; he hadn’t been sleeping well lately, Lulya keeping him up anytime the worry wasn’t.

“Can’t take who?” Phil asked, frowning.

Clint looked to the floor. This would be the end of it. If anyone would call him an idiot for doing this and point out every logical fallacy in the process, it was Phil.

“Whatever it is, Clint, I’m sure we can fix it.”

 

After a moment, Clint sighed and tipped his head to gesture Phil over to the seating area, plucking the blanket off of the bouncer and standing back next to him. 

Lulya blinked up at them with her huge blue eyes and then thoughtfully flexed her hands. Clint waited for Phil to say something, tell him to call the police, the same thing Bruce and then Tony and Natasha had told him, but it didn’t come.

“Hi, baby,” Phil said softly, dropping down to his haunches and nudging the bouncer so it gently jigged her up and down. He turned his head to look at Clint with a questioning look on his face, but he didn’t ask where she had come from or why Clint had her, he just asked, “can I hold her?”

 

\----

 

Clint had expected Coulson to be worse than any of them, expected the third degree at least, but it never came. Phil picked up Lulya and grinned at her, bounced her up and down and said ‘hello, little lady,’ and things that ought to have sounded wrong coming out of him. But they seemed right somehow, and Clint just stood and stared. 

 

Clint explained that yes, he found the baby and yes, he was going to keep her. No, he had no idea where she came from, and no, he had no plan to hand her over to the authorities. The whole time, Phil cooed and grinned at the baby, and when Clint was done explaining, simply said, “Lulya’s a nice name.”

 

“I gotta say, boss, I kinda expected a different reaction.” 

 

Phil blinked, as if realising for the first time how out of character this seemed. He smiled and brushed a hand over Lulya’s soft hair. “There’s no way you’d let a kid go into the system, not with your history.” 

 

“I can’t,” Clint said. “I just-” 

“I get it,” Phil cut in. “It’s ok, I won’t do anything. I won’t tell anyone. Do you know what you want to do?” 

Clint shrugged, pleased that this was going better than he’d ever let himself dare to hope it might but still wary. Phil had to be thinking he was a fuck up, didn’t he? This was par for the course for Clint Barton’s life, Phil probably just chalked it up to Clint being his usual messy self. 

 

“I dunno, I… haven’t really thought about much beyond holding onto her.” 

Phil nodded, stillholding the baby, unconsciously joggling her in his arms. She’d be asleep soon, Clint thought with approval. He had the look Clint was well familiar with - the beginnings of a crease between his eyebrows, a sharpness to his eyes. Looking into the middle distance as he figured out a plan. 

 

“I know someone at City Hall, I’ll find out what forms you need to get her in the system, putting you as her guardian and so on. We just need a few things in the system and then Stark can probably do the rest. I have a few favours I can pull in at SHIELD, but it’d be best if we keep this between as few people as possible for now.” 

 

When Clint didn’t immediately respond, Phil’s razorsharp concentration glare broke and he looked at Clint in question. 

Clint laughed nervously. He’d never been party to the hatching of a Coulson plan before. Trust him to make it all into a mission. “You’re really gonna help me?” 

 

Phil nodded without hesitation. “I trust you. I know you’ll do the right thing - if and when the baby’s real parents show up and we get the story behind her arrival here, I know you’ll do whatever you think is best. The system is there for when there’s nothing else.” 

 

“Oh,” was all Clint could reply. “I don’t know what to say.” 

 

“It’s nothing,” Phil replied, concentration back on Lulya’s tiny face. 

 

-

 

Over the next week, Phil signed Clint off-base for help with an indefinite ‘consultation’ gig that even Clint wasn’t sure of the details of. If he’d known Phil could basically sign him out of work with pay, he’d have been angling for it for years. He finally managed to catch up on sleep, able to sleep when Lulya slept instead of trying to work to the daily 9-5 of SHIELD. Not only that, but Phil started helping out all the time too, making use of the floor Tony had set aside for him when the team moved in at long last. 

 

It became a normal occurrence for Clint to wake up and find Phil already in his kitchen, making up Lulya’s formula, already in his perfect suit and tie. Clint would shuffle around in search of coffee, feeling woefully underdressed before Phil would take his coffee cup out of his hand, exchanging it for a bottle.

 

By the time Clint came out of the bedroom with Lulya in his arms, Phil would be gone, leaving two perfectly cooked eggs, or a bowl of perfect oatmeal on the kitchen counter. 

 

It took a couple of weeks to get all the forms together, Phil coming in one evening after work when Clint was tickling Lulya’s feet on the livingroom rug to present Clint with a stack of paper an inch thick. “Hi baby!” He said, loud and high, for Lulya’s benefit. Clint took the papers and looked away. If he’d been thinking of Phil coming home in some kind of 1950s ‘Daddy’s home!’ sort of way lately, that was no one’s business. Or perhaps it was Lulya’s business, since he sometimes whispered his thoughts about Phil to her when no one else was around. She was sworn to secrecy.

 

“Thanks, Phil,” Clint said, getting up and watching Phil take up his position on the rug. 

“Don’t go through them yet, I need to explain some things,” Phil threw over his shoulder. Clint watched them, the tiny baby and Phil gazing down on her with so much joy, and his fingers flexed with the need to go shoot something. 

 

“You mind if I go to the range?” He asked. “I can take her down to Bruce or Nat if they’re around.” 

 

“Sure!” Phil said, scooping Lulya up and standing, beaming at Clint. “Me and this one have lots to talk about, don’t we?” He said to the baby, who blinked in reply. 

 

-

 

Clint didn’t use the range at the tower as much as he should have, since it was better equipped and larger than the one at SHIELD, but he wasn’t usually in the tower often enough to bother. Now, he really put it through its paces, the familiar nock and release giving him a pleasing ache, telling him just how much he’d been slacking. Making his body feel like it was working for something. 

 

It had been about a week since he’d been apart from Lulya for any length of time, not counting the showers he’d had when someone was with her. He’d taken her up to the 35th floor garden for a walk a couple of times, but since everyone knew in the tower (Thor was away and Steve had been working on a long term mission with Sitwell overseas), he didn’t need to keep up the charade of everything being fine whilst constantly checking his phone for JARVIS’ updates. He still jumped when his phone buzzed with the vibration mode he had set up for ‘Lulya’.

 

 _Alert: crying_ , read his phone, and Clint momentarily forgot that Phil was there to take care of her. He swiped his phone and held it up to his ear, looking to anyone like he was listening to a call, but really listening in on Lulya crying and the sounds of Phil, shushing her. 

 

“Shh shh shh baby, it’s ok, c’mon sweetheart,” he said, soft as anything. Lulya sounded like she needed to burp, and Clint could hear Phil patting her on the back to soothe her. Clint was still holding his bow in one hand, letting it fall to the side when Phil continued. 

“I know, I know, I’m sad that your Daddy’s not here either, but he’ll be back any minute. He’s shooting arrows, getting all big and strong. Yeah! Your Daddy’s the best shot in the whole world!” Clint could hear her calming, could hear Phil’s voice jolt a little every time he jogged her up and down. She let out a little hiccupping sound and Phil laughed fondly. 

“There you go, that’s better, huh? You feel better? Lets go make your Daddy some dinner.” 

 

Clint swallowed, suddenly aware of how creepy it was that he was standing, listening in to Phil Coulson’s private conversation with the baby he kept thinking of as his daughter, which wasn’t fair to anyone. Even if it was all nonsense, the kind of guff you say to a baby. Phil calling Clint ‘Daddy’, talking about how strong he was, it was all so silly, but Clint’s toes curled in yearning. 

 

He knew he should put the phone down, stop this before it got creepy, but he couldn’t do it, especially not when Phil started singing. 

It was a Patsy Cline song, which was completely out of left field for Clint, who a: had never heard Coulson sing and b: country music!? After a few bars, Phil stopped and there was the sound of the stove being switched on. Clint felt like such a creeper, but he couldn’t help himself. 

 

“Macaroni cheese, I think,” Phil said, keeping up his one sided conversation with the now happily-gurgling baby. “Your papa likes that. Yeah, I know!” He added in response to Lulya’s noise. Clint imagined she wasin the carry-seat on the kitchen counter and could almost picture Phil’s rolled up shirt sleeves, his tie either off or tossed over a shoulder. 

 

Lulya kept making noises, and Phil hummed along as if agreeing with her. “This is the best gossip I’ve heard all day,” he said, before regaling her with a vague recipe for mac ‘n’ cheese in the best baby-level excited tones. Clint wanted to be there, watching Phil being so soft and sweet with this guileless baby, realised he’d just been standing in the range unmoving for a good ten minutes. He’d never seen (or heard) Phil this unguarded before.

 

He shook himself out of it and packed up, turning off his phone before hurrying back down to watch the action in person. Phil had his tie off, his sleeves perfectly rolled up, and Lulya was happily strapped into her carrier on the counter, just as Clint had suspected.

 

“You didn’t have to do that, boss,” he said, instead of ‘please always do that, forever.’

 

“I was hungry too, you don’t mind do you?” 

Clint snorted. as if he could mind. “You’re welcome any time, seriously. I’m gonna take a shower.”

 

Phil nodded as he passed, and Clint strained his ears to hear any commentary Phil might make once he’d gone. He didn’t say anything. 

 

-

 

The forms filled out and half of them filled, there were a few left that had to be done in person at City Hall. Phil worked everything out, showed Clint exactly what he had to do. There were about ten million tiny boxes on each form, and Clint was terrified of doing something wrong. “Can’t you come?” he asked, for perhaps the tenth time. 

“Only if we were married,” Phil laughs, and Clint looks at him without properly covering his expression. He laughs a second too late. 

“I’m all for you keeping Lulya if you can, but I’d rather not have to pretend to be married to you to do it.” 

“Oh, right.” 

There was an uncomfortable silence before Clint took a deep breath and went to stand from the kitchen table. Lulya looked up at him as Phil kept his eyes firmly on the stack of forms. 

“This might not be the best time,” Phil said quietly. Clint froze. 

“But?” 

Phil took a deep breath of his own before looking up. He looked fearful for a second, something Clint hadn’t ever seen on Phil’s face before, not like this, anyway. It was quickly covered with a trademark bland smile.

“Nothing, it’ll keep. You’ll be fine, alright? We’ve been through this.” 

Clint nodded, though he felt far from fine. “You’ll be here when we get back, right?” He asked, because the thought of coming home and Phil not being there made this all the more scary. When had he gotten so used to Phil being in his space?

 

Project Desk Jockey ended up going without a hitch, though Clint suspected that was mostly because Phil knew a guy who knew a guy, and a lot of the red tape and hurdles had been cleared out of the way beforehand. Clint told a story about an ex girlfriend leaving the baby with him, running off with someone else. It could be true for all he knew - Tony still hadn’t gotten very far with the triangulation of the person who left Lulya in the first place. The clerk hummed in disinterest and with a few thuds of a rubber stamp, it was done. 

 

As soon as he was outside, Clint called Phil. “Who’s the daddy?” Clint said, grinning, realising as he did so that the only time Phil had ever said that was when he’d accidentally listened in on Phil’s ‘conversation’ with Lulya. Phil laughed. 

“It went ok, I take it?” 

 

“I think so! I’ll show you the form copies when I get back, you can tell me.” 

“I look forward to it.” 

 

-WIP END-

 

-

 

_meanwhile tony hacks around, gets an image of the woman who left the baby, looks familiar to clint. he finds the numbers of his exes and calls up a woman who admits that she left the baby, figured clint had the money to look after it. the baby came from a one night stand back in clint’s home town --- so the baby is clint’s real daughter!_

 

_phil winds up moving in with clint, looking after the baby with him. he’s amazing. clint falls asleep on the couch one day and when phil wakes him up, he sticks a hand out to stop him and rub at phil’s thigh. ‘you should lie down with me’_

 

_happily ever after_

 

 

 

_lulya lulu <type of russian kebab <3_


End file.
